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Forecasters never predict where, when or whether a storm will strike land. And whether anyone predicts a below average or above average season has nearly no effect on the odds a storm will strike an individual place. So managers urge people to prepare as if one will.

The last three years were each among the busiest on record, but not for people in Florida, which hasn’t had a hurricane landfall since 2005. And a quiet year, 1992, produced only six storms, of which four were hurricanes, including a big storm, Andrew.

“With the devastation of Sandy fresh in our minds, and another active season predicted, everyone at NOAA is committed to providing life-saving forecasts in the face of these storms and ensuring that Americans are prepared and ready ahead of time,” NOAA acting administrator Kathryn Sullivan said Thursday at a briefing at NOAA’s Center for Weather and Climate Prediction in College Park, Md., near Washington.

Sullivan (NOAA)

NOAA’s forecast cited a continuation of the cycle of more and stronger storms that’s been around since 1995; warmer-than-average water temperatures in the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean; and the absence of an El Niño, the Pacific Ocean warm-water phenomenon that tends to hinder tropical storms and hurricanes.

Gerry Bell, lead seasonal hurricane forecaster with NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, also cited weaker wind shear –the clash between upper- and lower-level winds that can pull apart a storm’s circulation — as well as the existence of winds from Africa that favor formation.